The Accident- Bahamas and a few days after

I've started writing my experiences in my journal but thought I might want to share here on the blog for those who are curious about all that has happened this month. This is more painful for me to document than I originally thought and I had to stop to cry many times as I wrote in my journal. For that reason, I likely won't be quite as detailed but this story deserves to be told:)

The last week of October and the beginning of November were just crazy for me. We had Halloween, Kenzie's birthday party, I was in charge of Super Saturday and I was preparing my house and arranging my schedule to leave my kids for over a week with my in-laws. Keith was also working a lot to prepare to leave. I was about as stressed as I've ever been and to top it off, hadn't been sleeping well because I had been sick with a cold, stomach bug, then another cold for the month of October. In fact, the first night I slept a few hours straight was the night before we left for our trip.
I preface with all of this because despite being sick, I was exercising a lot. Our gym had a cycling challenge to attend cycling class 15+ times in a month. My friend Breea and I decided to take it. I was cycling 4-5 times a week for about an hour and getting in really good shape.

Thursday the 5th, I went to my last cycling class with my favorite instructor Angela. Angela is so good because she's inspiring. She has a motto she repeats in every class, "You can do anything for one minute." She pushes my wimpy butt to try my hardest and always gets the best results out of me.
So in class, I was still fighting my cold, but on the mend. I was feeling really energized and so grateful that I could be in Angela's class. I said a silent prayer of thanks for my body and for feeling strong and inspired. Immediately I was hit with the thought that I was in this cycling class for a reason. I was going to need my strength and this new found ability to endure hard things as I was going to be going through something painful. Well that scared me, especially because I don't typically get promptings that strong.

Two days later, the Saturday we flew to Ft. Lauderdale, Clara came into our room at 6 AM in tears. She didn't want us to leave and was having a hard time cheering up. I was feeling really tense myself and not excited like I should be. I chalked it up to stress but couldn't shake the feeling that we shouldn't leave. I was stressed about it at Super Saturday and even shared my concerns with a few of the women there. Saturday was a rush but we had good weather and made it to Ft Lauderdale right on time, about 11 PM Eastern time. We didn't stay up late so it wasn't surprising when I woke up about 6 AM Sunday morning. We ate breakfast, got ready and went down to the hotel lobby about 10:30 to wait for the cruise shuttle. We also went ahead and pre-paid for our shuttle home (I want that $20 back:)

We were both in shock when we got to the port and saw the cruise ships- so much bigger than we had expected! We boarded the ship in swimsuits and made our way straight to the surfing simulator. Keith and I both had a few turns then went to the boogy boarding side so we could be in the water longer than 5 seconds before wiping out.

We spent the rest of the afternoon trying out all of the free food on the ship. I thought Keith was crazy for it at the time, but I'm glad he got to do it. We had late dining and really enjoyed the other two couples at our table. Late that night, we went to a 3D showing of the Avengers. I was worn out so I left halfway through and went to bed. When we woke up, the ship was in port and we had a beautiful view of Nassau, Bahamas. Did I mention our room had a balcony? We really enjoyed it while we had it. We had a short port day, the ship was leaving at 2 PM so we didn't waste a lot of time getting up, eating breakfast and packing a bag. We didn't have any excursion plans in Nassau but we had talked about getting a scooter.

Our ship, Allure of the Seas docked in Nassau, Bahamas

We only took $50 cash with us and managed to get a woman to rent us a scooter for that amount for several hours. Keith was really hesitant about renting one, but I had talked to several people who had rented scooters on vacation and didn't have any reservations. It honestly never crossed my mind that we were being a bit reckless, especially considering we were dressed for the beach in flip flops and swimsuits. After I persuaded Keith a bit, we hopped on the large, beat up moped with no instruction except to stay on the left side of the road. We decided to go to Cabbage Beach first- just down a bit from Atlantis. It was gorgeous and we enjoyed a couple hours of beautiful ocean and sunshine. When it started to get crowded, we left and decided to spend a bit of time exploring the island before going back to port. A couple of times, I got nervous as the roads were full of potholes and the moped obviously didn't handle turning as well as it could have. We didn't stay out long before Keith told me he really didn't feel good about driving the moped anymore. I agreed and we started back towards port. Right as we decided that and turned around, Keith had trouble going around a corner and we almost crashed. We shakily laughed it off and I tightened my helmet as I hadn't bothered to do so before.

Taking a turn driving. We crashed about 20 minutes after this was taken.

 We were about a mile from port where the traffic picks up when we hit a pothole. The pothole veered us off to the right and the moped seemed to gain speed as we headed straight for a curb. I knew we were going to crash and I also knew I couldn't do anything about it. I think we both swore and then it gets really fuzzy. My next memory is that I'm lying on the ground and my foot feels like it's on fire. I held it up to look at it and immediately started to go into shock as the blood and torn up skin registered. I was yelling and aware that Keith was close by. It seemed within moments we had people stopping and asking if we were ok. I remember a woman and man talking about my foot, that I was losing a lot of blood and they needed to tie it off. Keith gave up his shirt and kept apologizing. My body was going numb and I started to black out. One of the women who stopped was a nurse. She held my hand and kept me conscious. The pavement was hot and hard but they kept me lying down in case my spine was injured. The angels who stopped called the ambulance and helped us get in contact with the cruise ship. The ambulance took 45 minutes despite the fact that the hospital was just 5 minutes away. I was in so much pain and remember wishing so badly that we had crashed in the US, not a foreign country.

When the ambulance finally came, we were put on stretchers. Neither the police or the EMT's were friendly. In fact, the EMT's seemed annoyed with us and when they transported us to the hospital, they didn't lock our stretchers down. I thought we were going to die on the way there as we were jostled all over the place. The day had turned into a nightmare. With the direction of the people who had helped us, we went to the doctor's hospital. It would cost more but our care would be better. When we got to the ER, they took their time seeing us.

They tended to Keith first and I felt so afraid and alone. I was still in so much pain but they didn't seem to have any urgency in helping me. Keith and I both had road rash along the left sides of our bodies, but his was a bit worse than mine. He had taken a big chunk out of his knee and had road rash all along his stomach and arm. I had also gotten my knee pretty good and my left arm and left hand. They opened the curtain between us and made me watch Keith get his wounds cleaned out so I could know how to do it at home before they treated me. They made it seem as if he was so much worse off than me and that I would have to be his caretaker. After what was probably an hour, they took me back for x-rays and after almost 2 hours, finally cleaned out my wounds. They said they were going to give me some strong drugs and they must have because my memory is fuzzy and Keith and I both think I passed out-the first time I had relief. When I came to, they were working on cleaning the gravel out of my arm. They hardly bothered with my hand, wrapping it up with gravel embedded in it and decided it was time for us to go. They were so vague about my foot, when I was discharged they simply said it would need stitches. The icing on the cake was the note written on both of our discharge papers from the doctor which reads "fit for travel by air, land or sea." He told us we would be fine to get back on the cruise ship and have our wounds tended to by the ship doctor. We debated it for a bit. We both had painkillers and antibiotics but neither of us really felt good about trying to catch up to the ship. The vacation already felt ruined. Though we didn't know it at the time, that decision saved my life.

They wheeled me out to the front office where Keith was paying the bill, over $5,000 no negotiating. We paid with our credit card then rode to the only hotel with an elevator- the Hilton. We were lucky that we had gotten in touch with the cruise line because they sent their port agents to gather our luggage from the boat and to fetch us from the ER. The port agents were kind and did their best to make sure we could get back to Denver. The front desk helped us find a flight from Nassau to Florida. We were able to google hangout with Keith's sister Katie who helped us change our southwest flight so we could get to Denver the next night. We were both so miserable that night and we laughed and cried about the loss of our vacation and the pain. Somehow, we managed to sleep and we helped each other hobble around to get ready the next morning. We left for the airport early. A different port agent took us to the airport. She was very kind and sympathetic.

The airport wasn't bad, we got through quickly because we were both in wheelchairs. We arrived several hours before our flight and about an hour before we were supposed to depart, I had an airport attendant help me to the bathroom. When I was in the bathroom, the woman sitting next to Keith asked if we happened to be the couple from America who got in a moped accident. It turns out that her son works for the local newspaper in Nassau and was just coming home for lunch when he saw us crash. It happened right by their house so he came out to take photos of us. She was really nice and asked if she could send her son more info and a picture. We were all smiles and joking because of the pain medicine and morbid hilarity of our situation.

We started getting anxious when the Jet Blue flight didn't arrive on time. We ended up leaving more than 30 minutes late and when we got on the plane we were met with more waiting. Our plane had too much fuel to land safely and the airport wasn't approving flight plans to burn the fuel. We waited longer and started panicking when we realized our connection was going to be really tight. When we finally took off, the pilot informed us that our flight time was doubling to burn fuel.  We were going to land with only 30 minutes to our connection. As soon as the plane landed, Keith booked it for the Southwest Terminal and the man who was pushing my wheelchair took me to baggage claim. He listened to my plight and decided that although he was supposed to be clocking off he would help us as best as he could to catch our flight. We sped from one end of the airport to the other to catch Keith. When we got to him, he told us Southwest wouldn't allow us to get on the flight because we weren't within 30 minutes of departure. It was also the last flight of the night so they couldn't help us. So we regrouped, and went to Jet Blue. We figured, it was their fault we missed our connection and they would have to help us. No such luck, they were horrible. They wouldn't take responsibility for the delayed flight, lying about the time and telling us it was our fault for booking a connection too close.

I was now in tears. I was panicking now, I knew I was not in good shape and that we needed to get home asap. It seemed like no one had flights and no one would help us get on one. I pulled out my phone and found a flight on Spirit. Online, the flights were showing up about $500 a piece. We were so frustrated but didn't have any other options to get home that night so the kind men pushing me and our baggage accompanied us to the Spirit ticket counter. The tickets ended up being so much cheaper and we had over an hour before the direct flight, giving us time to eat.

The flight felt so long. I was in a middle seat and halfway through I was slammed with nausea. The next two hours were miserable and when we landed in Denver, I wanted to kiss the ground I was so happy to be home. We got in late, almost midnight but Keith's dad was there waiting for us. We drove home exhausted and crashed on the couch. We should have gone to the ER immediately, but again, we didn't know how bad my foot was. In the morning, we waited to see the kids and send Kenzie off to school before we left for the ER. Keith's dad drove us and we told our sob story to the staff. They were so kind and again, I think I cried because I was so grateful to be getting the care we needed.

They unwrapped our wounds, saving my foot for last. The doctor came in to check us out. He looked at Keith first, scrutinizing his knee. It was too high risk for stitches at that point but he felt wound care and a stronger antibiotic would manage it just fine. He came to me next and told me everything looked good. Then he got to the foot and told us it concerned him a lot. It was a deep wound and I was going to need to be admitted to the hospital. He ordered an IV for me and told the staff to call the hospital. We were both taken aback. Keith asked if he could take me to the hospital. Turns out, I needed to be taken by ambulance as I needed medical attention and antibiotics.

Everything is seriously fuzzy for the next few days. I'm assuming the good pain meds started about this time. That first day I only remember meeting about a dozen doctors and residents and feeling a bit like a spectacle. Everyone wanted to hear my story and I finally was informed of the severity of my injury. My foot was infected, the wound was deep and I was going to need some strong antibiotics for a while. I was going to have surgery the following day, Thursday. I remember meeting Dr. Dworkin, the podiatrist doing my surgery on Thursday morning. I liked him immediately and felt more reassurance when my nurse gushed about him and how all the nurses went to him for treatment. I wasn't nervous at all for the surgery and didn't even know what he would be doing as I was still in a lot of pain and didn't want to know the nitty gritty details just yet.

Pre-surgery

When I woke from the surgery I had no idea what was going on. They were hooking up my wound vac, a device that suctions a wound to keep it dry. I was surprised that I was hungry and having some pain. When I got to my room, Keith asked if I was ok and told me he was sorry. I was confused, apparently I was told how the surgery went but couldn't remember. Poor Keith had to tell me that it had not gone as well as hoped. My wound was to the bone and they weren't sure I would keep my big toe. It was really disheartening to hear and it was made worse by the pain which shot up with a vengeance. They gave me dilaudid (morphine x10) and then zofran to help me keep my stomach from protesting. I don't remember much of the next day, just a lot of pain and tears every time I had to go to the bathroom which was a lot because they were pumping me with fluids and heavy antibiotics all day long.

Dr. Dworkin came to talk to me about surgery. He needed to do another debridement (surgical removing of dead skin) and then we would see what needed to happen next. Infectious disease informed me that the swabs when I came into the ER and during surgery indicated that I was growing the kitchen sink in my foot along with a mold. Because I had scraped bone off in the accident and the podiatrist had to take more bone off in surgery, they were going to treat me for a bone infection. The doctors told me that had I stayed, I surely would have developed sepsis and died. Had it been just a day or two more, the infection would have continued to spread and I would have lost not just my toe, but my foot or leg.